


Sleeping With Ghosts

by thelivinggrim



Category: The Field of Blood
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:13:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27164366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelivinggrim/pseuds/thelivinggrim
Summary: Sort of a one-off parallel universe emotional piece, focussing just on Paddy and Dr Pete and exploring an imagined relationship between them without any of the criminal investigation elements.
Relationships: Paddy Meehan/Dr Pete, Paddy Meehan/Original Character
Kudos: 1





	Sleeping With Ghosts

She’s just looking. There’s no harm in looking.

He’s got this air of mystery, of having a past, that allows her to project.

Sometimes she thinks she catches just the tail end, the departing glimmer, of a certain type of glance. Just a tiny aftertrace of recognition, of knowingness. When the others give her grief - about her inexperience, her being a woman, her body. When she ends up giving them all a piece of her mind.  
When she needs someone to look out for her.

She can’t help it, imagining him, if he really thought that. Imagining how he might look at her, if he did - how he might have been looking at her this whole time, if she could only catch it in time.

There’s something about the brooding silence of him. Supportive but sinister. An avenging angel.

She thinks about him thinking about her, her body, the feel of it, and, she can imagine him sighing, closing his eyes. She can imagine herself, going to him. Oh he’d tell her to go, but, she wont, and, then, well maybe - oh she fidgets at her desk, wondering if he knows. It can't possibly happen, it’s all up in your head girl, she tells herself. Oh don’t I know it. But, when you've nowhere to go to get it out.. even at home she can't get a minute, it only builds and builds. Its nowhere even to go with Sean - well, you manage, now and then, but it’s always rushed, in a stairwell, an alley, somewhere cold and cheerless, and he’s so single-minded about it. No finesse. And when you do, you're thinking of those cold steely, stormy, blue-grey eyes on you across the office, thinking of those long bony hands against your big soft breasts, thinking of the knife edges of his hips, and, of the creases in his perfect, immaculate shirts, and, oh christ, his wrists are so slender, and, oh christ, the way he bites his lip when he's thinking, and, oh, christ, imagine it's him, it's him, hot and hard and furtive, oh, you call out the right name, but, it's not Sean in your head, your heart — it's him, it's him.

And when they start talking. When his, nebulous sense of support becomes a little more concrete. She can’t help leaning into it. Resting more of her weight on it than she knows she should, pushing her luck, trying to see if it will bear her.

She knows she should leave it be, leave him be. But it isn’t at all hard to find out his address.

Then, one afternoon - not even at night, although lord knows she is dreading the night, dreading another minute in the house with every molecule of air in the flat breathed in and spat out by her family; their arguments and their demands and their, just, filling the space - all the space in all the rooms, but all the space inside of her as well. One afternoon, then. In a fever pitch of loneliness. When all she is is what use she can be to other people. She persuades herself: he understands me. He wants it to happen. Surely it’s meant to be. Surely, you’re a young woman in the flush of youth and all that. Surely, if you were to try.

So she tries.

He invites her in, surprised, pleased to see her but slightly wary too. But he welcomes her in, there’s real affection there, a light in his eyes, a rise in his voice, that’s more than just politeness. She believes it’s going to plan. The warm fire in the main room. He offers her tea, reaches out to take her coat.

And that’s when she, artlessly, with the hopeless open optimism of naivety, untoggles her coat and drops it to the floor: suddenly standing in just her underwear, like something out of a film. His heart aches for her. It’s not even like it’s a sexy trench coat or something: the poor wee love has come all this way in just a duffle.

Christ, though. He can see the outline of her.. can see.. — Well, far more than he should be looking to see.

He turns his mild pale eyes to hers, helpless, a pained but wistful expression on his long ascetic face. It won’t do to beat about the bush, for want of a better phrase. Better tell it to her straight.

“I cannae fuck you sweetheart.”

Her mouth hangs open, stricken. Stood in the pool of her rough woollen coat like Aphrodite in her clamshell.

“I just can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

“So they're right then, all of them, that I'm too ugly, too fat. Just a joke.” Her voice is choked, husky with the promise of tears.

“No — no, my god lassie. It’s not that at all. Christ I'd be lucky to — but I just can’t.”

He moves his hand in a gesture that goes nowhere. He can’t make her sit here in a coat and knickers. He gets up, gets his dressing gown off the door, and puts it round her, trying not to touch her in the process.

“Well why not then? If you want to, and I want you to?” She asks, plaintive, as he gingerly drapes her with the green silk wrap. She tries to press herself against him but he holds her back.

“I’m old enough to be your grandad. And, those pricks at the office, eh, what if it was them eh, what if you heard they'd .. would I be any better than them? What would Devlin say?”

She steps away from him, finishes putting in on herself, crying. Tying it angrily, tightly, at the waist. She can’t think what total madness made her come here like this.

He wants to hold her or stroke her face but that's only gonny make things worse. He glances down and away, clearing his throat. Awkwardly he holds her half against him for a moment, angling his body away to minimise the contact.

Stepping back he looks gravely into her face.

“Oh, honey. Look, I can see you.. I can see that you're needing. Have you not even got anywhere to .. get it out of your system?”

“I share a bed with my sister.” She says drily but with genuine desolation in her voice.

“Oh sweetheart. Go in the bedroom, go and do what you need to, and I'll make us a pot of tea.”

She stares at him and he smiles, sadly and maybe a little wistfully.

“You'll feel better for it, after.”

She gets up, letting the gown hang open again,

“Please Pete, if you canny fuck me, can you no just... just anything. Just a wee touch. Please. I wont tell anyone.”

“I can't. You know I can’t.” He kisses the top of her head, but wont let her hold him, wont let her press herself to him. “Get along now, you'll feel better afterwards, and then we can go back to normal.”

She goes in his room like he says, following his hand that's gesturing to it, almost in a dream, beside herself - the feel of the puddled silk of the dressing gown luxuriant on her skin. Shutting the door in the quiet, it’s as if she can physically feel him nearby, the hush is a weigh on her chest like him lying there. It feels ridiculous, comical, some kind of a jest to be apart from him yet here like this.

The tension, heavier than air, is filling up the room around her.

She looks at his things, touches them: the shirt hanging on a hanger from the wardrobe door, the old fashioned folding alarm clock on the bedside table bound in faded blue leather, the dark wool jacket on the back of the door. She buries her face in it, pressing her breasts into the fabric, letting its rough nap snag on her nipples, stifling a groan that almost turns to tears, wanting so much for him to be inside it – for him to be inside her.

In the other room she hears him switch on the radio, some kind of violin music, high and sweet and straining, lifting and dipping, a tight wire of fine liquid fire.

She gets into the bed, pulls the eiderdown over her. It's such an odd thing to be doing, if he's not going to - if he doesn't want to. Why not just send her home? She wonders if this is what he wants instead. He could be watching. She imagines him kneeling at the door, eye to the keyhole, getting hard, inside those neat perfectly pressed suit trousers. There’s something sophisticated, exiting about the idea, an exotic refinement - of course his tastes would be beyond the crude fumblings of the boys her age, who just want to get it in as quick as possible.

Turning over, she breathes the smell of him from his pillow, oh it's so good, a tonic-y gingerish smell, slightly bitter, medicinal. Well it's doing her good anyway. Its so intimate and yet so distant, and yet, he's right there in the other room. Surely he's playing with her? She can't wait though, not now. Imagining him under her, imagining him roughly tugging himself to completion, imagining taking him in her mouth, imagining him listening, now, smelling her hands afterwards, licking them, bending her over his knee. The images are tumbling, a muddle, too much. It's the scent of him. It's knowing this is his bed, where he lays, his naked body, at night — where if he fucks himself its here that he must do it. On her hands and knees in his bed, pushing her breasts into the mattress, her face buried in his pillow, she lets the wet run out of her, presses her fingers to the soft damp longing place. She keeps it going, going, not wanting it to end, when she so rarely gets a chance, when once it's over it's all over, the dream of him, of him letting her, of him, wanting her to. She lets the sounds come as they will, not spitefully but freely.

And afterwards, just like he said. They drink tea together. She wants more than anything to rest her head against his chest. She wants, to lie in the bath with him and have him wash her hair. She wants. To be his darling girl. But she drinks tea with him and then shows him, she’s brought her clothes in her satchel. “Eh!?” he barks out a laugh of surprise. “Imagine coming all the way here on the bus in nothing but coat, with your dress in the bag the whole time!” He smiles at her, shaking his head. “You’re mad Paddy. You funny little thing”.

She could do without those being the compliments he gives her, but she holds the tone he says them in close in her heart.

—

The next time she comes round - of course there’s a next time. Does he think there’s anything else for her in the world outside this flat now? The first thing he says is,

“Oh you again is it!” He’s smiling but stern, a puzzled frown creasing over his slate blue eyes. “If I let you in, don’t think I’m for this rigmarole you’re putting me through. And don't you be getting any funny ideas either.” She smiles back. “Tcsh, Away with you, I'm off to the shops.”

When he comes back, when she’s, had her respite, when they’re safely sat with their tea, her knees tucked up and her bare feet on the sofa, and a slow dreamy waltz playing in the background, she asks him,

“Why do you let me, why do you tell me to, if, you don’t..?”

He takes a little while to reply, as if thinking.

“I just. I suppose, I just remember what it was like.”

There’s a pause before he continues,

“It doesn't do to stifle it. And it's no just that. You need room to grow, to become yourself. Tch, when I was your age.. well lets just say I could've done with a room to go to and no questions asked now and then.”

“Oh don't —” she moans

“Now then. Come on now.”

“If I was thin, would you? If I was glamorous. If I was Heather.”

“Christ don't talk pish, you're beautiful. Truly you are. I'd rather've been with you, if I was going to. You're a vision. And funny and warm and smart and so alive! And what man wouldn't want a lassie that needs it the way you do.”

“You don’t.”

“Ah sweetheart I'm no a man. I'm a thing now, a husk - no even an implement. You've no use for me, I promise you. Darling, I couldn't gi you one even if I wanted to. I've been drinking whiskey all day for half my life now. That part of my life is over.”

“There's other things..”

Firmly he replies “No, there isn’t. Not for us anyway.”

“So the old ‘it’s not you it’s me’ then?”

He laughs. He wants to ask her what she knows about that, what she knows about the old anything. The would-be sophisticated bravado of youth. But instead he says gently, almost wistfully even,

“If I'd met you when I was 22. Or 32, maybe, if you’d been sure, really sure of it. Christ, even at 42 I might have been tempted. I woulnae have done anything ye ken, but, well. I might've thought about it.”

The idea of him thinking about it —

“I thought this was meant to be all you old lads' dream”

“Aye and do you respect any of them? D’ any of them care about you? Just you wait, and see what you'd think of old lags like me chasing girls your age when you're a woman of forty, you'll be glad I wouldnae. I'm glad I can't, glad I'm no tempted to do something I would certainly regret - for you, sweetheart, I would regret it for you. And for myself because I'm no that kind of person. Let that be the end of it. I'm not going through this song and dance over and over. I let you stay here, I let you sleep here, I let you do what you need to. I can't - and I won't - do more, I've made that clear. If that's all you want of me then we can't make this work. You can bring back lads even, if you do it when I'm out. I don't mind it, but lord knows I need my beauty sleep, I'm not kidding.”

She couldn’t bear it, but, she couldn’t bear not to be with him either, and this funny little fugitive life they had made together was the only place she could let her guard down, where she really felt real. Outside of work, in their own world. They played dominoes sometimes, or cards. Afterwards. And sometimes they talked, in slow meandering circles, about the past, about what they believed, about what she wanted from life. Apart from him, obviously. He was the best, the only warm and nurturing thing in her life. And yet he would never let her be to him what she wanted to be.

Sometimes, just being around him, she felt disgusting, inhuman.

But other times she felt like she was blooming, a beautiful soft flower, unfolding.

She found herself going walking, in the early evenings mostly, around parts of town where she's not known, feeling it in herself, a kind of lambent hovering flame, waiting for something, wondering if anyone else can see it in her, wondering if she's unintelligible, invisible. Who am I and what am I becoming?

—

One night they were sat on the sofa together, and, for once he was letting her rest her head against his shoulder. It was windy outside and they had had a fish supper for their tea, he’d picked at his mostly truth be told, but it has been cosy. Now they sat nestled together like birds on a branch, with the wireless on low, something classical she didn’t recognise - although he liked to point out the names of the pieces to her, the composers and the like.

She said dreamily, apropos of nothing, “You're the most beautifully dressed man I've ever seen, DP.”

“Aye?” He said briskly. He sounded pleased though. After a pause he relented,

“Just leftovers really. I had a bit of money and a bit of style back in those days.”

She glanced at him sideways, wrinkling her nose, stroking the very outer edge of his suit sleeve

“When you were young?”

“Aye.”

“And they still fit you, you're the same size?” She asked, trying to keep her voice neutral, moving her fingers over his cuff.

“You'd've liked me then alright —” he smiled, wry and lopsided, but with a rueful note in his voice “— I cut quite a dash. A bit of cash, some beautiful suits, and fresh out of the seminary, I had a lot still to work out believe me. About life, ye ken me. And a lot of pent up feelings to work out and all mind!”

Something fluttered within her and she tried to somehow press herself to him without moving, without giving herself away.

It was no use.

He grinned and nudged her, but it was with a sadness in his eyes,  
“Tch don't think I don't know what you're doing. I'm sorry lassie, I shouldn't've got carried away, remembering the past. I don't mind you thinking of me like that if it makes you happy, but, I don't think it really does.”

Sometimes, just, very occasionally, he would kiss the very top of her head,

And, once, he brushed her hair.

With the gas fire on.

It was perfect.

But when she leaned back against him he said "Eh!" on a warning note, and she knew not to push it. Just, filing it away, in the folder in her heart labelled ‘if only’.

One time she fell asleep in his bed, after, the usual routine now, and, dead tired, he’d lain down on it beside her, fully clothed, on top of the covers, a good two foot of a gap between them. When she woke and looked into his face, the wry lined countenance peaceful, vulnerable in sleep, the lashes long and delicate and somehow new looking, like the way the frost illuminates each blade of grass with a novelty that renders it arrestingly, movingly visible, her heart felt as if it would just up and burst. When he woke up he smiled at her, easy and sweet. He rubbed his eyes and, groaning with the pain, sat up. Without looking, with an austere smoothness born of repetition, he extracted a bottle from the bedside cabinet, his body and the slider of the drawer moving in concert. Pouring himself an inch of whiskey he eased himself back against the headboard and gingerly stretched his long body. She could have wept at the sight of him, at the tiny intimate little shivers that passed through him like echoes. Stiffly swinging his legs round he slowly stood up. She watched his back, the motion of his shoulders, his quick delicate hands as he put his cufflinks in again.

Turning to leave the room he said, smiling his sad beautiful kind smile, like an impish angel, “You know I do love you though, kid? You do know that don’t you?”

Her voice choked she replied “Of course I do you silly old thing.”

—

That was the same day he’d found himself summoned to Devlin’s office, and the man was already wound up and champing at the bit to have it out.

“What’s all this I’ve been hearing about you living in sin with Paddy?’ he burst out the minute Pete was through the threshold. “Christ she’s barely out of nursery school – I said to them, you must be stark raving mad – I’ve known Pete since –”

“Aye it’s true.” He said placidly. “But, it’s no what it looks like. What you’re implying.”

Devlin’s mouth hung open

“Pete. You can’t be.”

“Devlin if you think I've an interest in that sort of thing —”

“I don't. But think of the look of it man. I can’t believe you’d expose yourself to the talk.”

“When have I ever cared about talk Devlin?”

Devlin sighed, exasperated.

“That’s as very much maybe Pete but it’s not the sort of thing I can be turning a blind eye to.”

“What business is it of anyone’s? She’s of age. And, as I said, Devlin. There’s absolutely nothing going on between us, of that ilk.”

“I’ve had her mother on the phone Pete. Saying all sorts.”

“Devlin. I can’t be having this conversation with you, not like this. Give yourself some time to calm down.”

He walked out, to find them all lining the corridor. Even Paddy, looking miserable and exposed, but, if he wasn’t mistaken, with a certain glow of excitement to be the cause of a commotion.

He wasn’t wrong about that but the reason was off - she couldn’t help feeling a stab of joy in her heart at being linked - so publicly linked - to him.

McVie, the big slow moving bullish bulk of the man blocking the way, said with a wry sing song self satisfaction,  
“Oh aye, the cradle snatcher is here now. What’s the matter couldn’t get a normal woman?”

Paddy flushes like he’s slapped her and Pete’s eyes become very cold. But he does not rise to him.

“The pervert and the piglet, you make a beautiful couple” He goes on, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand as if tasting something disgusting. Paddy would like to set him on fire. She would like to spit directly into his face.

Pete says, very quietly,

“You don’t know what you’re talking about”, and moves to get past him.

McVie puts his hand against Pete’s chest, pinning him to the wall. Pete looks down at it, slowly, quizzically, and back up at his face.  
“I wouldn’t if I was you.”

McVie laughs heartily, ostentatiously in his face. “Oh yeah? And why’s that stick man?”

“I’m dying.”

Paddy feels her heart split in two. If it’s true. He can’t be. And to find out like this. Like _this_.

McVie not missing a beat, showing no interest, lets go of him dismissively,  
“Aye, well, a man can get some funny notions when he's on his way oot”

Wearily, in a voice infinitely contemptuous Pete asks, as he turns to go, “Do you really think that's the only thing in the world that can exist between a man and a woman?”

It was that, finally, and that alone, that made her realise once and for all. The tiredness, the impatience, the exasperated pity in his voice when he said it. That there was no hope to be had anywhere and no use in bothering him trying to make there be either.

And no hope in the world at all if he wasn't in it.

—

The Book Of Luke:

After the funeral. Them, what’s between them, starts at the wake.

The thing itself though, that starts on the sofa and ends on the floor in front of the cold gas fire.

Her gasping, panting, the hectic motion of her.

Her hand on his chest.

Pushing him down.

Afterwards, lying on the rug together.

He whispers, a trace of wonderment in his voice, “Christ, you needed that didn't you”

She starts to cry

He holds her to him and in a while when she’s quietened asks her, gently, no accusation to it,

“Were you in love with him?”

“Yes.”

“Were you and he..?”

“No.”

He rests his hand, warm and still, on her belly. Her voice was a little choked up. He just waits, and, eventually she says,

“I wanted to though. I really wanted to.”

He doesn’t speak but gently he holds her closer.

“I begged him. I tried everything. He wasnae interested. He said it wasn't right.”

She bites her lip, not looking at him.

“But sometimes, he'd let me go in his room - alone - and.. get it out of my system, he called it. Told me to go and do what I need to, I’d feel better after. And I did. But I never stopped wanting him that way.”

“He never —”

“It wasn't like that, it wasn't for him. He wasn't interested. Usually he'd put the radio on or go out.”

“Then.. why?”

“I don't know. He just thought it was something I needed. He was in the priesthood, you know. In the seminary, as a young man. Said they taught them to hate their bodies, hate what they needed, that it sent folk awry. He said he didn't want that for me. Said you needed to get to know yourself to grow into who you were meant to be.”

“So, you just went and... wanked it out? With him sat out here like nothing was happening!”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I'd just lie there and cry. Or a bit of both! It wasn't easy, you know. I really did want him. I loved him.”

He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head and the way he did it reminded her so much of Pete it was like a spear right through the middle of her heart.

—

Later, when they’re really a thing, she gives him Pete's suits

She feels funny about it, but, there's no sense letting them go to waste. And christ, christ, the sight of him in them. Oh it hurts her like a dragging wound, like a dragging would, but fucking hell she needs it like that too. Needs it when he fucks her in them. Each one in turn. Grasping the lapels, feeling the straining zip against the hot jut of him in her hand, plucking the buttons with her fingertips, breathing that scent of him, of bitter medicine. Oh she can't keep herself in check. The neighbours must be on their last nerve.

They bump into Devlin in the street one day, holding hands, and she instantly steps outside herself, split in two, sundered — seeing it through his eyes — and is so deeply embarrassed and ashamed. The look on his face says it all. He looks a little like he's been punched. Like she's just slapped him round the face and pissed on his shoes. She had worried that the others would laugh at her, if they knew, pity her, despise her. But this is worse. It is only in his eyes that she learns the extent of her betrayal.

"Devlin” she says hurriedly “This is Pete's great-nephew, Luke Gilcrest. Devlin is the boss at the Post."

Seriously Devlin shakes his hand,  
"He was a good man, Pete. I'm sorry for your loss. For all our losses. Worked with him over 30 years. A rare good man. The soul of an angel, the mind and tongue of a rapier!”

He glances at Paddy as he walks on, nodding, "I'll see you on Monday Paddy." Her heart feels like a stone.

—

He calls her into his office on the Monday morning, as soon as she's in. Like she knew that he would.

"Paddy!” he says with brusque heartiness, closing the door. She hopes no-one else is in to know about this.

“How are you doing? It's a tough time for all of us, but.." he pauses, awkwardly "I know you were close."

She nods, unable to speak, mind reeling and tongue heavy in her mouth. He goes on, briskly, a man with a purpose who must get his words out before he thinks the better of it

"I can't pretend to understand exactly what was going on with you and Pete — " he raises his hand to stop her rushing in "— but I trusted him implicitly, would trust him with my life, and he told me there was no funny business and I believe him. That lad I saw you with though. Christ! You must know - he was the spit of him. And if you think I wouldn't know the French cuffs on that shirt again, the blend and cut of each suit, after 30 years across from them, you're very much mistaken."

He looks at her and there is an accusation in his eye, but his voice is surprisingly soft and concerned.

“What’s going on with you Paddy”

"I don't know what to tell you Devlin. This has all been.. its been a lot."

"I can't believe I'm asking you this, but, you and he..?"

There is a lump in her throat that it hurts to swallow, she struggles to find her voice. It comes out hoarse with unshed tears.

"I.. I loved him Devlin. I would have loved him.. physically, you know. If he'd've let me. But he never, not even one kiss, not one touch, I promise you. Never even a look. He gave me somewhere to stay when I needed it, but that was all. I think he loved me too, but not like that, not as a man and a woman, never like that. I had no clue he was gonny leave me the flat, no clue at all. I know folk are talking but the saddest thing is it's not true — and I’m the one who wished it was, not him! He was the one who said it was wrong, and I tried, god knows I tried, more than I should have, I see that now. I should have respected his wishes right from the start, not put him in the position of having to keep telling me. He was having none of it, I can’t stress that enough. For them to think ill of him for what was in my heart and not his. I feel awful, I feel like a disaster that happened to him, when all he ever did was try to show me kindness."

"Oh Paddy.” Devlin breathed out, slowly. There was a long pause. “I’m so sorry lass."

"I'm sorry I gave Luke his suits."

Her voice is small and choked up. She’s crying now. She knows that part of it - any of it! - Is none of his business, but she feels as if she is on trial. She couldn’t defend it to him even if she wanted or knew how. It’s a crack in her heart than keeps aching but she can’t help herself. Even thinking of it now, even in remorse, she feels a rough quickening inside her chest. She wondered if Devlin knew or could guess about that side of it. She needs something to take her out of herself, to take her over completely, to obliterate for a moment the pain of losing him. But each forgetting brings another remembering in its wake, another small losing him all over again. She realises with a pang they don’t even smell like him anymore, not exactly. Now Luke, and lust, have altered their composition. He’s slipped away again and she never even saw him go.

Devlin shakes his head, maybe dismissing the apology, maybe chastising her, maybe just in bewilderment.

"Christ. It was like seeing a ghost. I knew him as a young man you know. When he decided to get shot of the church. That fella was the absolute image of him back then. I hope you know what you're doing Paddy."

"I don't know what to say to you Devlin. I'm so ashamed. I'm not trying to replace him - I couldn't. I never meant for it to happen.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me lass.”

“But I want to. I want someone to understand me even when I don’t. It isn’t just the look of him. Luke is kind, like Pete was, a kind gentle person like him, and, I needed someone to be kind to me. It's hard to live with someone you're in love with when they don't love you back. Luke spoke to me about him at the funeral, asked me how I was, took it seriously that I’d lost him too. He was the only one of the family who didn't see me as some kind of gold digging jailbait interloper, who didn’t hate me for loving him. And when it seemed like Luke liked me, like there could be something between us.. it didn’t stop me missing him, didn’t stop me loving him, but it was like a little chance to keep something of what Pete had been to me alive. To not lose him completely."

Devlin looked away sadly, but with something like a smile in his voice replied “You know he’d never begrudge your happiness. I wish you the best kiddo. Few enough of us get a second chance in life. I can’t say if this is the right way to mourn someone or not. I’m glad you’re not facing it alone I suppose. I know your mam kicked you out.”

Paddy’s face hardened “I don’t need her help. Pete gave me that.”

Devlin laid I hand on her shoulder. “Back to work then now kid. I’m here if you want to talk about him. We’re both the better for having known him. But them leads aren’t gonna follow themselves now are they.”


End file.
